After a 15 year "rest off the bike" im back on it. Now i have a Benotto frame with a mix of campag atheana and shimano 105 gear levers use to be on the down tube, my brother decided to do a few triathalons about 7 years back and updated the gear leavers to the brake levers.the tubing is columbus cromor. i need to update and have had some people say to me to check vintage bike sellers to get a price on it.Does anyone know what price i could get for this or sites i can go to to find out.

Thanks all for your input yep i have cleaned it up and it is running on six "only"gears, and will do me till i save up the $$ for a new/secondhand bike. PS3,Wii,weight set and alot of other things will be going on ebay before i sell my benotto that was not made in Mexico!Cheers again all!

For some reason i turned it over before i went to work this morning and yes!! it has got I stamped under it along with 58 (size) and another number. Although it's not that new looking it has scratches with a little rust near the seat pole.It also has made iin italy on the lug below the head stem and above the forks. It looks identical to the one you refered to on ebay except pink not blue.Cheers again for your help.

Are the stickers the original ones (do they appear like they've been on the frame the whole time)?

The stickers don't look like the Italian ones.

This is what I mean........

Do the lugs have heart (they're not hearts but best explaination, triangle with a indent in the top) shaped cutouts in them, like this.......

At a guess if the stickers look original then it's probably a Mexican built one (well Mexico or Venezuela), still the same family they just found it was easier to run a business in South America (plus the weather is nicer), will it make any difference to the value? Only a little.

Wal42 wrote:Are the stickers the original ones (do they appear like they've been on the frame the whole time)?

The stickers don't look like the Italian ones.

This is what I mean........

Do the lugs have heart (they're not hearts but best explaination, triangle with a indent in the top) shaped cutouts in them, like this.......

At a guess if the stickers look original then it's probably a Mexican built one (well Mexico or Venezuela), still the same family they just found it was easier to run a business in South America (plus the weather is nicer), will it make any difference to the value? Only a little.

I thought if it had " I " stamped under the bb it was made in Italy????

I'm not entirely sure, but the period you're talking about, the bike should have the Benotto 'heart' shaped cut outs in the lugs, normally there are 2 slots cut cross ways in the bb, the stickers definitely don't look like the Italian ones. Anyone can stamp an 'I' in the bottom bracket, are the drop outs marked 'Brev Campagnolo'? Most Italian bikes (Benotto's included) used Campy drop outs on both the front & rear, that being said, other manufacturers around the world used them too. It's still the stickers that make me think it's a South American Benotto. The other thing that worries me is the shape of the rear drop outs, Italian Benotto's normally have the centre of the drop out cut out (see my 2500 & a month or so back there was a piece about a 3000 total resto in the US), see the rear drop outs are 'filleted', the ones on your bike appear to be solid, it could be an anything with some Benotto stickers put on it.

I'm guessing that it's worth maybe $350 tops, would have been worth more if it had a full gruppo of one type or another, but with bits from here bits from there, it losses a certain value.

Early stuff, really needs to be either perfect concours condition or atleast full period (with patina) to be of any real value, then it's market price, my 2500 Chromevelato only cast me just under $300 landed, a 3000 in similar nick would fetch around $400 to $500, but you need someone who either loves old Italian or is a bit of a Benotto fanatic (like me), otherwise the general cyclist has no idea what a Benotto even is, so then you're looking at competing with the $100 to $200 Repco Superlite's & the like.

The 'filleted' Brev Campagnolo used on European bikes around that era (also on my Spanish Razesa).............

The 3000 model recently restored by a US forum member......................

A close up of the detailed lug cut out featured on most steel Benotto's of that era...............

Here's a photo of Giacinto Benotto with a 3000 model in a factory photo, late 70's...................

All in all, I have some grave doubts that your bike is an Italian Benotto, as I said earlier it may not even be a Benotto.

Sorry about that.

Last edited by Wal42 on Sun Feb 03, 2013 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

To give you an idea, my daughters Benotto cost me $70 off Gumtree last year.

It's a Mexican and came with a tri-colour groupset. Nice little bike.

If you want to find out what it's worth you can either put a price on it and offer it here, on Gumtree or auction it off on ebay. Your bound to sell it but probably not to any of us because we all know what we think it's worth and as Wal42 says, your competing with a lot of similar quality bikes. Each one having it's own particular following. Personally, I'd keep it because that's what I like.

The brake bridge definitely looks Benotto, as does the panto on the seat stay, the love heart shape under the bb is different to the early Benotto's, so I'm guessing it is an 80's built South American model.

Some one at some stage has mucked with the running gear, you say it had Athena & 105 gear on it, nobody normally builds a bike with components from 2 different manufacturers, but either one was mid 80's at earliest, this also leads me to believe that it is a South American Benotto. As far as my research has discovered the only frames that came out of the old Torino plant in the mid to late 80's were the bonded race bikes for some of the European based racing teams.

Looking at the way the frame has been made (very interesting take on the bb cable guide) I'd say it was one of the early South American ones (when they were re-establishing their new factory), which could be a little rare, but would generally turn most people off because it looks rather bodgie (remember that they are Italian & sometimes the old 'Friday build' quality comes into play).

If it came my way for the right sort of money, then I might grab something like that, but I'd be looking at a bare frame price as most of the running gear (which either way you went) would have to be broken off the bike. Considering you can buy a concours resto Campy Record equiped 3000 from Europe for a bit under $700, I'd say your one is probably worth maybe a little less than what I paid for the 2500 I just got, so around $200-$300 tops, but you'd need to find a buyer who's keen or you're back competing with the $100 aussie built retro bikes.

Sorry if that upsets you, but a bike is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. Stick it on eblag with a reserve, if it never hits the reserve price then you've got the reserve too high.

It's the way that Giacinto used to sign the Benotto name (his surname), it was one of the common panto's on the Benotto bikes, there was also just capital block lettering 'Benotto' in an oval or the stylised 'B' which you can see on bardygrub's brake bridge.

With the latest bunch of pics, I'm pretty certain it is a Benotto, probably much the same as morini's one (P.S., morini, are you into them, I've got a fellow Moto Guzzi riding mate who has a 3 1/2 that I'm sure he could do without but haven't been able to convince of that yet, it's only been about 10 years), so if you aren't happy to stick it up on elbag & take your chances, then I'd do as suggested, restore it, use it as your training bike & if you really think that you need a modern bike to be competitive then buy something new. Remember that you make very little money from racing pushbikes (if any at all), so do it as some fun, if you just have to have the latest 10K carbon thing then you're probably not going to have that much fun.

I have a bike with 9 speed indexed D/T shifting, I would happily race it if I was that interested in racing road again, why? Because it would be heaps of fun & would get quite a lot of comments, if you take it too seriously then you're not going to have any fun, if ya ain't having fun the why the fark are ya doing it?

Rod Y from the Sunshine Coast, you'd know him, everybody knows Rod. It shows my interest in things Italian, I've been a member of the MGCoQ for about 13 years, been Pres, VP & on the committee most of that time.

Don't talk to me about Italian quality, I've been dealing with it for years, bloody addictive though.

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